FAQS.

Yes, all investments come with a risk, even your current investments will already have a level of risk.  Part of our role as your Financial Adviser is to establish how much risk is acceptable and suitable for you. We will complete a ‘Risk Tolerance Questionnaire’ with you, the results of which will give us an idea as to what level of risk will be suitable.

Put simply ‘capital’ is the money that you invest. With market fluctuations and other outside risks, an investment will always bear some form of partial or total risk to your money. Our objective is to provide the best advice that we can to help you minimise your risk profile, however we will always try to reiterate that there will always be a risk to capital with any investment.

This completely depends on the type of advice and any financial products you take out as a result of the advice. We will discuss any appropriate charges before you commit to any plans.

The time it takes to transfer a pension or ISA varies from case to case, and depends on how quickly your existing pension or ISA company provides us with the information we require in order to establish whether or not a transfer is in your best interest. See our process page for further details on what is involved in a transfer. We advise that the whole process can take anywhere between 4 weeks to 3 months to complete. It is important to note that the time it takes to advise and transfer an ISA or pension also depends on you providing us with any information required as appropriate.

The funds and portfolios that we use all provide regular updates on how they are investing. Specific details are available on request.

The main advantage of using a Broker as opposed to your own bank is the access to a wider choice of lenders, Independent Financial Advisers can access the whole of the market whereas banks will only offer their own products which may not necessarily be the best suited for you.

We have access to lenders that represent the whole of the mortgage market. But not deals that you can only obtain by going directly to a Lender.

The most common question asked by people looking to raise a mortgage. The answer is not simple. it involves multiple personal factors on income and expenditure as well as varying lender criteria. In April 2014, the FCA released new regulation called the Mortgage Market Review (MMR). This regulation tightened up affordability checks and put more responsibility on mortgage lenders to ensure borrowers could afford the mortgages they were taking out. Since MMR lenders hide behind affordability calculators which ask a range of questions relevant to their criteria and then produce a maximum mortgage amount. Our job is to find out all we can about your income and expenditure and research the market to find a mortgage suitable for your needs. Every Lender has their own criteria when it comes to what they will and will not accept for income some Lenders will take 100% of your bonuses, overtime and commissions into consideration while others may only take 50%. It is also common for Lenders to have varying opinions on your expenditure. Some will take pension payments and childcare costs into their calculations while others will ignore them and have built It Into them into calculators already. Due to the complex nature of affordability, we would always recommend taking Independent Financial Advice on your situation. 

Your Home (or property) may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or any other debts secured on it.

Debt Consolidation: Think Carefully about securing other debts against your home. Your Home or property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or any other debts secured on it.

We have an initial chat, complete a fact find and potentially request some documents. We then do some research, explain to you what is the best product based on your criteria and then look to do a Decision In Principle (sometimes called a Mortgage In Principle). If you are accepted we submit the full application and send the request documents to the Lender. These will be assessed and when they are happy they will instruct a valuation. Once the valuation is back this will be assessed and if satisfactory will be sent for final checks and then your mortgage is offered. It is advisable to look at Financial Protection which we also offer an advised service on.  The next part of the mortgage process is down to your solicitor.

GPFinancial IFA Ltd is an appointed representative of 2plan Wealth Management Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. GPFinancial IFA Ltd is entered on the FCA register (www.fca.org.uk) under no. 999321. Registered office: C/O RUS & Co, 1192 Stratford Road, Birmingham, B28 8AB.